Design issues in mobile agent programming systems

Abstract

The article discusses system-level issues and agent programming requirements that arise in the design of mobile agent systems. The authors describe several mobile agent systems to illustrate different approaches designers have taken in addressing these challenges. The following areas are discussed: agent mobility, naming, security issues, privacy and integrity, authentication, authorization and access control, metering and charging mechanisms, programming primitives, agent communication and synchronization primitives, agent monitoring and control primitives, and fault tolerance primitives.